[GCARC] Field Day 2023

[Tony Starr]

Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but after a great weekend of doing
my favorite operating event of the year, I had to face the aggravation of
returning to work today. Hopefully next year, I will be retired and I can
go home and bask in the joy of another great Field Day for a few days
without anyone killing my joy. Anyway, this was, without a doubt, the
smoothest running Field Day I could have ever hoped for. And I really did
not have to do much to get it to happen. In line with my usual management
style, I just stepped back and let everybody do their thing, and wow, it
all just came together!  I cannot thank all of you enough for this. Except
for a few well-timed downpours, everything exceeded my best expectations.

The most important and noticeable difference this year was the turnout. We
had a lot of people show up, both members and guests, and they stayed
around for many hours, with some never leaving at all.  This means we had
plenty of help for the setup and teardown, and we also had enough operators
to keep the stations on the air that needed to be kept on the air.  The new
layout worked well, but not perfectly, so we can learn some lessons from
that. The bandpass filters that we bought really helped to reduce crossband
interference to almost nothing, so you can bet I will be asking the
membership for additional funding to buy some more of them, as we did not
have quite enough of them to go around. There were some issues with in-band
QRM between CW and FT-8 which we will need to address, but other than that,
we did a lot better with local QRM, even on the shrunken site.

The food was great, and was served up hot and right when we needed it.
Many compliments to our "culinary staff' for a job well done.  We had many
visitors and guests, some of whom will be joining the club because they
were so impressed with us. We had a few new operators who were able to get
their feet wet this time, and we are hoping that they will be coming back
for more. I did not operate all that much, but when I did I was generally
pleased with the level of activity, at least on 20m CW.  Our excellent
location really helps, but I was calling CQ and hitting skimmers from
Germany to New Zealand. Conditions were not great, but neither were they
very bad. W2MMD was definitely being heard.

All in all, it was a very successful Field Day event. Nothing blew up, and
nothing fell down, so we are ahead of the game. Again, my most sincere
thanks to everyone who pitched in and got it done, with a special thanks to
my scorekeeper and technical adviser, Jim Wright, N2GXJ. All of us together
were able to pull this off, and like most of our successful endeavors
lately, we really looked like we know what we are doing. Can't wait until
next year, but for now, 73!

Tony Starr, K3TS
Field Day Chairman 2023